Most young educated people are leaving the country, but Putin does not care.
Search in Google for query in Russian “How to leave Russia?” reached a 10-year high within the country within a week of invading Ukraine on February 24 . From Moscow to Novosibirsk and from St. Petersburg to Murmansk, Russians are increasingly looking for ways to escape in anticipation of a bleak future in the country, writes CNN.
From mid-February to early March, Russians' interest in “emigration” at Google quadrupled. At the same time, the search for “tourist visa” has almost doubled, and “political asylum” more than five times. One of the most popular destinations for Russians to emigrate was Australia, Turkey and Israel, as well as Serbia, Armenia and Georgia, which was also attacked by Russia in 2008.
“It is difficult to determine exactly how many Russians have actually left the country and whether they can really do so. Financial constraints, a sharp rise in travel prices reduce the chances of escaping Putin's Russia, “the newspaper writes.
Veronika, a 26-year-old digital marketer from Moscow, said she did not want to leave the country at first and went to anti-war protests, but in early March began to realize that the situation was deteriorating.
“Police have started taking activists straight from their apartments, taking people out of the subway,” she told CNN, adding that police had come to her parents' house in Siberia to threaten her.
And the last straw for her was the reaction of the majority of the Russian population, which, according to her, mostly “believes in television propaganda.”
Despite the fact that Putin called the fugitives traitors, the outflow of citizens from the country does not stop. And political persecution is just one of the reasons why some Russians are trying to escape. In particular, some families do not believe that the situation inside the country will improve, they are worried about the possible conscription of their sons into the army or want to receive a Western education for their children, said Andrei Kolesnikov, senior researcher at Carnegie Moscow.Center.
Thus, for 16-year-old Nikolai, whose parents sent him to Georgia via Armenia, it was a revelation how many acquaintances he met there. According to Georgian Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri, more than 30,400 Russians have entered Ukraine since the beginning of the war until March 16, while more than 17,800 have left. According to him, this is almost 14 times more than in the same period of 2019. before the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, almost 10 times more Belarusians came to Georgia.
Flight options from Russia are constantly declining, and attempts to cross land borders are also problematic, as the country has banned its citizens from traveling outside the country by land in 2020, officially due to the coronavirus pandemic.
It is also difficult for a couple living in Moscow to leave. They said that people are buying tickets to Armenia en masse, which are now five times more expensive than before the invasion. For many people, this is not affordable. In order to leave by land, you need to have documents on vaccination against coronavirus, but in Russia itself, you can only be vaccinated “Sputnik V”.
As the flight from Russia becomes more expensive each time, mostly young, well-educated people with a sufficient level of earnings can leave earlier. For Russia, this is mainly a technological class. A few days after the invasion, they shared information on social networks about possible ways to escape from Russia and Belarus.
“The age and status of those leaving Russia raises the question of what this flight means for the country's future. The fact that Russian dissidents are now being pushed out of the country could complicate any change in society in the coming months and years. However, this does not worry Putin much, “the newspaper writes.
“Putin does not care about the brain drain, he only cares about his regime. It is useful for him to get rid of dissenters and make everyone silent and afraid, “said a representative of the Free Russia Foundation in Georgia.
